Rogers' Five Main Attributes of Innovation on the Adoption Rate of Online Learning

Do, Truman

Online Submission

Background: Hawaii Pacific University (HPU) has increased the offering of online courses for its students. The drive toward online instruction has been championed by school management, but feedback from faculty and students has not been measured. Purpose: To investigate the influence of Rogers' five attributes of innovation diffusion on the adoption rates of online education by faculty members and graduate students in the College of Professional Studies at Hawaii Pacific University. Setting: The College of Professional Studies at HPU housed four graduate programs: Master of Science in Information Systems, Master of Arts in Organizational Change, Master of Arts in Human Resources Management, and Master of Arts in Global Leadership. Each program chair has discretion in term of setting up the online course format, but they must adhere to the reading-discussion-paper model. Study Sample: Two population samples were collected for this research project: The researcher surveyed 250 of 500 students. As for the faculty, the entire population of 43 was surveyed. Research Design: Correlational;Statistical Survey. Data Collection and Analysis: Surveys were distributed to the two sample populations in two stages. The first stage involved emailing the surveys to professors and students who exclusively work in an online environment. The second stage involved face-to-face contact to distribute the surveys to those who took classes both online and brick-and-mortar. Findings: Out of 77 respondents, 48 have taken online courses. The cumulative attributes of online learning received 24% negative response, 26% no opinion response, and 50% positive responses. Out of 77 respondents, 29 have not taken an online course yet. The cumulative attributes of online learning received 23% negative response, 44% no opinion response, and 34% positive responses. Conclusion: The results for students who have taken online courses in the College of Professional Studies did not the first hypothesis. The attributes of simplicity and trialability are the only two that are positively related. For the attribute of simplicity, students perceived that it was easy to use WebCT. Also, the assignment instructions posted were clear and detail. As for the attribute of trialability, they perceived the ease of signing up online courses was high. (Contains 6 tables, 6 figures, and a bibliography.) [Citation: Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations, 5th Ed. New York, NY: Free Press.] [Master's Thesis, Hawaii Pacific University.]